


Weird

by womanaction



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanaction/pseuds/womanaction
Summary: Britta notices some odd things after moving in with Annie and Abed, and decides to take matters into her own hands.





	Weird

Before moving in with them, Britta hadn’t realized how _weird_ Abed and Annie were.

She knew they were weird individually, of course. If she had a dollar for every thing Abed did that she didn’t understand, she could afford her rent without parental assistance. For like…the rest of her life. Annie’s neuroses were a little better-hidden, but by the time she’d seen the younger woman tear their study group apart for the sake of finding a pen…well, her psych professors would have a heyday with either one of them, to be honest.

She just didn’t realize how weird they were _together_.

They had a seemingly endless supply of weird board games, for one. She learned quickly not to show even polite interest in them to avoid getting roped into playing. And that wasn’t even touching on that VHS game that they convinced her to play with them once. Britta had given up after five minutes – she just sat down and watched them turn around in circles and shout nonsense at the screen in perfect unison. They didn’t even notice. She filmed a little bit of it with her crappy phone camera and sent it out in the group text, captioned “this is what living w annie and abed is like”.

Jeff’s almost immediate response: “Looks about right.”

Shirley: “So precious!! I miss you all so much!!” and a picture of a kitten angel.

Troy (a surprise, since he rarely had the international service to respond): “i cant see the video but i know it’s something AWESOME”

In the grand scheme of things, their weird games weren’t that bad at all. Britta’s had a lot of crazy roommates in her time, the kind who would intentionally start a fire in a crappy one bedroom apartment at 3 a.m.

But then there were all their rules.

She could swear she’d met old married couples with fewer “house rules” than Annie and Abed. No parties. Buttered noodles no less than twice a week. Annie had this complicated system with hot and cold drinks that Britta could never get right (iced coffee with nonfat milk March-October…before 6 and only when the moon was waning, or something, and otherwise hot coffee with no milk, _unless_...). She’d made the mistake of making a _When Harry Met Sally_ joke about Annie’s preferences one afternoon and found herself stuck between them on the couch actually watching the movie, because apparently Abed had a list of movies that can be rewatched anytime somebody other than him references them.  

She sneaked into his room later that night and took a picture of the list for future reference.

When other members of the group came over, it was like a national holiday. But like, a sucky one, like Flag Day. Was that a national holiday? Not that it matters, because the government imposing days for mandatory celebration of itself was barely-cloaked fascism. Speaking of fascism, Annie was an absolute dictator when it came to “company.” Britta feared for her eventual children. She had a dedicated playlist (that had been trotted out so much Abed apparently knew it by heart) and a laminated sheet specifying everything down to the exact arrangement of pillows. Whenever it happened, Britta did her part – cleaning the litter box and staying out of the way.

Also, why did they have so many candles?

Then, of course, there were the “in character moments.” She was used to Abed adopting characters in especially stressful or exciting times, but she wasn’t really sure when Annie’s involvement started. Maybe it could all be traced back to her first date with Troy, which left them alone in the Dreamatorium. Anyway, she was in no way prepared the first time she came back from a shift to find Abed and Annie dressed up and sniping at each other in old-timey accents.

“What are you guys doing?” she asked, totally baffled.

They both turned to look at her, and said shortly in their normal voices, “ _His Girl Friday_!” Then they immediately turned back to each other and resumed their banter.

After a while, she was able to ignore these occasional forays into extra-weirdness. She even let them (mostly Abed) talk her into wearing a Wonder Woman costume for some sort of celebration at the local comic store and she had a pretty good time, even if she didn’t get into it as much as Batman and Catwoman did.

And that was another thing, maybe the weirdest of all. They’d been pretty physical with each other for years – she remembered seeing them holding hands or cuddling at dozens of group functions. But for some reason, it was different to see them sitting much closer than necessary on the sofa when nobody else was around. Or maybe it was weird because it wasn’t that weird to see them attached at the hip.

After all, they had been close for a long time, especially after Troy left. And some of the stuff she caught them doing was sort of Abed-and-Troy stuff, like workshopping their (overly complicated) secret handshake. But other stuff…wasn’t. When Annie was tired, she’d fall asleep during a movie, her head lolling on Abed’s shoulder, and he almost never complained about her missing the best parts. One time, Britta walked in and Annie’s head had migrated from his shoulder to his lap. Abed’s eyes were still fixed on the movie, but he was gently petting her hair. When he was frustrated with a project, Annie would rub his shoulders. It made her feel like she was intruding on something, like she’d moved back in with her parents (who were currently “rekindling their connection,” eww).

But she had a pretty high capacity for weirdness, and she just chalked it up to that sort of odd intimacy that was built up between two needy people. Even if it was probably unhealthy. She considered copying the section from her abnormal psych textbook about codependency and taping it to the bathroom mirror, but couldn’t justify the 50 cents it would cost at the library.

When it came to the Batman and Catwoman thing, though, she reached her limit. They were relatively normal during most of the event, the three of them taking pictures together and with the other attendees. Britta actually ended up talking to a woman there about feminism in comics, and by the time they parted ways (with tentative plans to hang out and smoke sometime), she realized Abed and Annie were gone. She finally found them behind the building, doing some kind of scene that seemed to require an awful lot of innuendo and soulful gazing.

Okay, if they wanted to have weird games and rules and be characters, Britta could do that. But she was going to do it her own way. It was going to be a game called “dealing with your feelings in a psychologically healthy way,” the rules were going to be that they couldn’t come out until they figure out why she was doing this, and the role she was going to play was the matchmaker.

Like, a generic matchmaker, not the one from _Fiddler_ or anything.

She waited for the weekend, knowing Annie will flay her alive if she misses class. She made some dumb excuse about messing up a psych experiment and needing their help (“You mean you Britta’d it?” they both said, erasing any possible concerns she had about doing this to them). Then she took their phones under the auspices of the experiment, told them to read the sheet on the table (which said “DEAL WITH YOUR FEELINGS” in size 72 font), locked the door, and left.

Britta walked over to the vending machines, sat down, and pulled out her laptop. She was feeling pretty darn good about herself.

For about ten minutes. Then she felt two pairs of eyes on her and looked up to see Abed and Annie standing with crossed arms.

She frowned. “Hey, how did you two get out?”

“I have a key to the door,” Annie said tiredly. “Remember? I literally unlocked it this morning when you were leading us in there to trap us.”

“Yeah, you pretty much Britta’d your matchmaking attempt,” Abed added unhelpfully.

Well, crap. “Wait, what took you so long to come find me, then? Did it work?”

Annie shifted her feet. “Well…seeing how it affected you did give us some perspectives on our actions.”

“Yeah, so we decided to go ahead and tell everyone we’re together.”

“Abed!” She elbowed him.

“That we just got together, just now, in the last ten minutes,” he said unconvincingly.

Britta’s mouth dropped open. “You guys…were together…this _whole_ time?”

“Not the whole time,” Annie hedged. “Just the last…month...”

“We thought it might be weird for everyone else, so we just didn’t tell anyone for a little while.”

“We figured you’d pick up on it eventually, with the sneaking into each other’s rooms…”

“And that time you walked in on us almost kissing. Definitely thought you knew after that.”

“But _anyway_ ,” Annie said brightly, “now you know and we know you know and we just have to tell the others!”

“You’re a really good friend, Britta,” Abed said warmly, taking her by surprise. “I was concerned that our relationship would throw off the already fragile group dynamic, but you were willing to actually force us together just so we’d be happy.”

Annie and Abed beamed at each other and then walked off, leaving Britta alone with her thoughts.

She decided to call this a win and wondered suddenly how much school would it take to become a couples’ counselor.


End file.
